This is another “come along with me as I walk” blog. Let me share some of the sights from Thursday’s walk which started at Ossington subway station and sort of followed Davenport south to Queen Street with a few diversions down alleys and side streets.

below: More painting, this time Princess Leia and a strange red man with a latch in his ear.

below: If he’s aiming for the garbage bin, he’s missed.

below: ‘Always fresh bread!’ according to the mural on Nova Era bakery… but maybe you see the edge of the blue and white city of Toronto development notice sign peeking into the picture….

below: … because a 12 storey condo may be moving in. Retail is planned for the lower level but it may the same old same old glass and steel development with excessively high ceilings on the ground floor and zero street appeal. Please prove me wrong!

below: Across the street, is this empty storefront. Two intriguing blackboards remain – the one on the left says Thank You! and leaves you lines to fill in with things you are thankful for. On the right, a “Before I Die” board. What are you thankful for? What would you like to do before you die? The business once here didn’t die, they just moved around the corner to Bloor Street.

below: A bit of local ‘colour’ complete with ‘colourful’ language.

below: This building is on the northeast corner of Bloor and Dovercourt.

below: I haven’t been able to find out anything about Valentinos but I quite like the debonair rider with a rose between his teeth.

below: Vintage photo of the Bloor and Dovercourt intersection. No cars!

below: The red and white building in the postcard above is on the southeast corner of the intersection. It is now home to a Pizza Pizza. Most of it’s large windows have been covered over with large pictures. The streetcar tracks on Bloor are long gone and Davies butcher shop is now a Starbucks.

below: I walked past St. Michael Archangel Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church (on Delaware Ave) and a Portuguese Presbyterian Church (on Dovercourt). Then I came across the Centennial Methodist Church. It was built in 1906 and converted into residences in 2010.

CENTENNIAL METHODIST CHURCH, 1906, This Neo-Gothic inspired church replaced an earlier Centennial Methodist Church built on this site in 1891. Notable design elements include decorative stone trim, three central Tudor-arch windows, and flanking square towers topped with pyramidal steeples. It was renamed Centennial United Church in , after the creation of the United Church of Canada. In 1986, the Nisei congregation of the Toronto Japanese Church joined Centennial United to form Centennial Japanese Church. A residential redevelopment was completed in 2010.

below: A little farther south on Dovercourt I passed this for sale sign. I stopped and took a photo of it because of the words in pink: “Laneway suite potential”. Of course I had to check the lane to see if anyone had built suites back there. Suites, according to the city of Toronto, are rooms built over garages and not stand alone residences.

below: It is a neat and tidy lane but so far with no suites

below: But I did see this mural there.

below: I also noticed that the backyards on both sides of the alley were very deep, wonderfully deep actually, especially for a city house. You could probably sever it in two quite easily.

below: In fact, something like that has happened a bit farther south where someone took one house, renovated it, and added three more residences with additional access from the alley behind. I notice that there are 4 water meters here as well as a gate that possibly provides access to the houses behind.

In case you’re curious, the four houses are all for sale. The house in front is a semi and the asking price is $2,400,000. For that you get 2992 square feet and 4 bedrooms. The others are slightly smaller and slightly less expensive.

below: A rare large vacant lot

below: Norbregas Variety and Grocery.

below: And nearby, a cafe with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi signs

below: The streets around Dovercourt are all very nice with lots of large solid old houses and tall trees – in this case, a chestnut tree.

below: I even spotted some wildlife!

below: Northeast corner of College & Dovercourt

below: Letters embedded in the sidewalk where one of the branches of the Garrison Creek passes underground, just south of College Street. The creek was buried more than a century ago. In the early days, the creek was treated more like an open sewer than a river. As the city developed, the stream was diverted into underground sewers (1880’s) and streets were built above it. By 1920, almost a century ago, the stream was entirely diverted into the sewer system.

below: The age of this car seemed to fit well with the buildings around it.

below: Some of Dr. Spock still remains. He hasn’t been beamed up yet.

below: Part of a mural by elicser in a lane behind Dundas West

below: Looking east along Dundas, from Dovercourt

below: A larger than life Pink Panther painted by Matt Gondek. This is on the northeast corner of Dundas and Dovercourt, close to Skey Lane where his other murals are (see recent blog post on Skey Lane)

below: She can still be found near Queen and Dovercourt (painted by Jarus)

Just before Queen Street West there is an art galley called the David Kaye Gallery.

below: It may be difficult to see, but this cup is displayed in a glass case mounted on the wall. The back part of the cube is a mirror. For $12,500 it can be yours (but my arm is not included!).

below: Both this piece, and the cup above, are part of “Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem” and are on display until the 23rd of September.

I am going to end this blog post with a few pictures of some of the graffiti that I saw:

below: A mural with a pink skate boarding raccoon with a hockey stick and a Blue Jays baseball cap. Also words of encouragement (or at least that’s how I’m going to interpret them today), Keep Pushin. It’s actually an ad for Kadence World, a store that is opening up on Ossington, a place where art, music, and skate boarding all converge.

This is part of my ‘end of the year clean up and sort through photos’ process that I start most years at this time – I don’t always finish but that’s a whole other story. One of the drafts that I found this morning was this post which I was in the midst of writing when the fan on my laptop died. The technological hiccups have been dealt with and on we go…. . back in the fall I spent some time around Bloor and Spadina and this is the result.

below: On the SE corner of Spadina and Bloor are these supersized Dominoes. It’s rather silly but I like the juxtaposition of Dominoes and Pizza Pizza. This is also part of Matt Cohen Park.

below: The hoardings went up around Honest Eds late in October. By the time you read this, most (if not all) of the building will be gone.

below: Jimi Hendrix Sculpture Garden includes the bronze sculpture “People helping People” 1990, by Al Green. The sculpture also appears on the property of an apartment complex in Davisville – the connection being that the two properties were developed by the same family company (the Green family as it turns out). The garden also includes two bas-relief sculptures on the wall. These are reproductions of some of the decorative facades of the Victorian houses (1890’s) that used to be on this site until they were torn down in 2004.

below: What the well dressed mummy was wearing this fall season.

below: There is not a lot of street art as you get closer to Spadina (there is more closer to Bathurst). This garage door is one of the few pieces.

below: Poster for the YCL (Young Communist League) of Canada.

below: The Ten Editions books store which sits on University of Toronto property. There is some debate/discussion going on at the moment re the development of this site. Ten Editions has been there since 1984. At that time, the building was 100 years old as it was started its life 1885 as the John James Funstan Grocery Store. The University of Toronto wants to tear it down so they can build a 23 storey residence on the site.

below: On the grounds of Trinity St. Paul Church is a sign that marks the spot of another garden. This one is the Heart Garden and it is there to honour the children who were lost in or survived the residential school system. “May we be part of a future of reconciliation and justice”. It is designed in the shape of an Indigenous Medicine Wheel. You can see the four concrete ‘paths’ that divide the wheel into four sections. I have never noticed this garden before and it is unfortunate that the first time was late in the autumn when nothing was growing. I will come back in the spring and/or summer to take a closer look. Apparently it is part of a project, just one of many heart gardens across the country.

below: Walmer Road street sign. Most of these green Annex signs have faded over time and it is rare now to find one in good shape like this one.

As I type this, there is still snow falling from the sky, the tail end (I hope!) of the latest snow fall. .. so you can expect some snowier pictures in the near future!

Tucked away on a garage in an alley near Brunswick and Harbord is a garage with three murals, at least two of which are the work of Aaron Li-Hill.

below: This mural is not new but I am not sure how old it is. I am not even sure if I have seen it before. I can’t believe that I found an alley that I haven’t walked before in this area, but anything’s possible. This mural is by Li-Hill for sure.

below: This too is the work of Aaron Li-Hill as you can see from the signature.

below: This seaside town scene has no signature. I like the little people, one with a surfboard, some playing in the water, and a couple hand in hand.

One more reason to wander the lanes and alleys of the city!
(With thanks to Anita for walking with me and showing me this garage.)

“There’s more than one way” describes the above picture quite nicely but it’s probably a stretch to say that it’s relevant to this blog post at all. Not that that’s ever stopped me! The other day I stood at this intersection (Lakeshore and Sherbourne I think) trying to decide which way to go. I went straight ahead because that’s what the traffic signal told me to do. I obeyed. “When in doubt, go with the green light”, is one of my ‘rules’ when I’m walking.

below: The artistry of hydro towers and wires framed by the Lakeshore and the Gardiner.

below: The view inside the streetcar. A new 514 Cherry car was wrapped in a light blue ad.
I have no idea what it was advertising.

below: There are a number of this “eye” balls in the playground part of Sherbourne Common.

below: Changing the billboard. The image is printed on a large piece of vinyl (plastic? something similar?) and held to the frame by ropes. Or at least that’s what it looked like. It was quite a distance up so it was difficult to see exactly what they were doing.

below: Graffiti. Two words. In yellow.

below: Chairs. Blue chairs. Three blue chairs plus one reflection.

below: A drab door on a drab wall.

below: An entrance to a different parking lot.

below: Numbers on the concrete.

below: More numbers. Another code that I can’t crack.

below: Stonework details on an old bank building.

below: Another old building – now that the north building of the St. Lawrence market has been demolished, the rear of the St. Lawrence Hall has been exposed. It’s quite a pretty building.

below: Interior, St. Lawrence market

below: And when you’re in front of the St. Lawrence market, isn’t it obligatory to take a picture of the Gooderham building? A Toronto iconic view.

below: Another icon, the CN Tower, as seen through the Distillery District from Cherry Street.
That’s a fabulous orange door!

below: Postage stamp art at 234 Adelaide East by Joanne Tod and Jon Reed. The whole installation includes 12 images including a 1930 painting by Lawren Harris (2nd on the left) which was issued in 1967. To the right of it is a stamp honouring the Alouette 2 research satellite. In between those stamps is Queen Elizabeth, a fixture on Canadian stamps for so many years. The old post office which was built in 1834 is nearby.

below: Walls. Shored up walls of the construction hole in front of a wall of glass.

Nice of you to ask, I’m feeling fine thank you very much. But I think the little man in the top corner is feeling angry.

Right below little angry smoker is a tiny tbonez character, masked ninja, from the Urban Ninja Squadron. These little ninja guys are popping up all over.

below: Another ninja, this time Carbon Freezing Chamber Ninja.

below: On the bottom, another member of the Urban Ninja Squadron, this time Moose Ninja. I’m not sure who is responsible for the top paste-up but their signature is a skull on top of two crossed daggers.

below: A mural by Troy Lovegates on Queen Street West close to Roncesvalles. People and multicoloured circles (bubbles? balloons?)

below: Feeling perplexed. Me that is, not sure about how this guy feels although I get the impression he wants some milk, otherwise he’s a mystery. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the heads of mural artists.

below: This older man looks relaxed, if not already asleep. Perhaps he drank all the milk.
Feeling silly.